House cleaning, laundry soap making, dinner with Will’s parents, workouts, football themed church service, long talks, playing with a puppy and the girls, sweet treats, and the Super Bowl with my family.

A wonderful weekend.

Check in this week for

-Things you should probably know about me
-WIOW
-Thursday Things
And more!

Instead of loving these people and warmly inviting them in, I felt put out.

Annoyed that I had to rush around to light candles and lay out towels, selfishly wishing Will and I had the evening to ourselves instead.

Selfish.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Sometimes I’ve got hospitality problems, ya’ll!

As I lay in bed that night, my face grew hot with embarrassment for how I acted.

No one ever knew the frustration I felt preparing for our last minute visitors (um, though I’m pretty sure Will suspected it as I frantically threw dishes in the dishwasher and laundry back in the dryer haha), but I knew.

God knew.

I felt ashamed.

The Bible is clear on hospitality, both in the old and new testaments.

It’s also extremely clear on love.

I feel as though the two go hand in hand.

I love 1 John 4. It talks about how when we live in Christ, our love grows more perfect.

How do we think of others above us and show warm, loving hospitality?

By living in Christ.

Living in.

Abiding.

I love these words, and oh how I need the reminder.

I hate when I act selfishly. Since we’re rattling off verses, the Bible also tells us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but to think of others above ourselves.

Well huh. When you say it like that I feel pretty yucky for having a cow over opening our house to someone who really needed it.

The funny thing is, though, I totally had vain conceit.

There’s no pretty way to put a spin or bow on the reality.

I didn’t want anyone to see the dusty coffee table or dishes in the sink.

You know, because that’s never the reality of anyone else’s life.

Ha.

Why can’t we be vulnerable and show and share love?

It’s the most basic and biggest commandment- to love God with all we are, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

It’s children’s Sunday school 101.

Yet, 31 years later I’m still getting schooled on love and warm hospitality.

About just how selfish I am sometimes.

I’m so thankful God reveals these things to me.

I’m so thankful He shows me this yucky “self stuff,” as Beth Moore calls it, so that I can see just how desperately I need Him if I’m really going to love like I’m called to.

People are looking for love.

True, authentic, pure love.

I mean, turn on the TV or radio and all you hear is how “we’ve” been burned by love and are searching for the real thing.

If we’re caught up in dirty dishes or feeling put out, chances are we are missing the point and a huge, a huge opportunity to show the love of Jesus.

What a shame.

I wish I could tell you’ve I’ve been miraculously healed of my frantic obsession for having a tidy house.

I haven’t.

However, I have been fervently praying to love Jesus more than anything else in this entire world, and that in loving Him first, I truly love others as he commands.

Selflessly and completely.

There’s absolutely nothing in me that can do those things.

This Christmas I pray and encourage us all to have eyes to see those who need love.

We don’t have to spend money to show love this season.

It can be a kind handwritten note to someone who needs it, baking cookies for an elderly person who lost their spouse, or letting someone going through a hard time know we’re praying for them and just how much God loves them.

I find Christmas opens doors and makes people more receptive to the gospel than other times of the year.

Let’s use this season to exemplify God’s love.

Lets abide in Him and spend time daily in his word and prayer today, asking Him to help us love as he’s called us.

About how I love Christmas and all the trappings. From the commercials, to the stores, to the cookies at my parent’s house, the candlelight services, advent studies, and everything in between.

We all have family traditions and favorites and I would LOVE to hear yours!

Feel free to share below in the “share the love” section.

We’ve had lots of traditions over the years.

Some have stuck, some have changed, and some have only recently been adopted.

I would love to do a Christmas post devoted to aaallll the Christmas things, but today’s post is devoted only to all things Christmas for 2014.

Which will be enough.

We have a few things coming up this month that I’m very much looking forward to, and feel the need to share on the blog.

Sorry.

Because of all these changes I keep talking about (and not sharing!), Will and I opted to minimize Christmas stress wherever possible.

That meant we opted not to go to our company Christmas parties. While super fun (I enjoy them way more than Will), our time is valuable and important so I opted to give that one up in favor of more time with family (and taking care of all these changes that I keep talking about but not talking about).

We also opted to do a joint Christmas present early next year.

We’ve always done joint Christmas presents with each other, and I love that we do this instead of buying each other presents.

Will is impossible to buy for.

Even with no Christmas parties, there’s still lots of fun in store.

We are attending The Nutcracker with my parents this year!

Funny side story.

I think I realized just how much Will liked me back in 2002 when he skipped an OU game to take me to The Nutcracker and acted like it was no big deal.

We will also enjoy some of the gorgeous lights and decorations downtown OKC.

We also love going to the movies this time of year.

I’m the annoying person that whips out my not-so-quiet carrot sticks and proceeds to eat them at the worst ever time.

During quiet scenes when you need to pay attention.

All of a sudden you hear, “Snap! Crunch. Crunch.Crunch.”

I’m sorry.

I don’t mean to eat at the worst times, but it often happens.

Anyway, Will isn’t a carrot stick smuggler.

He’s all about the movie theater popcorn.

Understandably.

It’s delicious.

Every Christmas, our theatre has deals on refillable drink cups and popcorn buckets you can buy and use for the following year.

It’s a must-do in the B-Love house, so we’ll be making a stop to the theatre at some point so Will can buy his tub.

Speaking of movies, here’s a fun fact.

My sweet Will had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life in its entirety until just a few years ago.

Real life.

Now it’s among his top favorite movies.

Naturally.

That’s on the to do list, too.

Oh, and while we’re at it, if you haven’t seen it, you should!

Now.

As for Christmas music this year, I typically alternate between Pandora’s Christmas Radio and their Christmas Choral Classic stations.

Something about Christmas makes me adore the choral classics. I can rock around the Christmas tree with the best of them (um, and I totally do), but I can’t beat a beautiful rendition of my favorite Christmas hymns.

My family also had a yearly tradition of going out to eat together sometime the week of Christmas, followed by a huge tour of Christmas lights!

There are some fantastic public displays in OKC, as well as in neighborhoods. We hit them all.

Now that we’re responsible old, P and I opted to simply do a $20 stocking challenge for each other’s gifts this year.

Oddly enough, I had a blast with it! I think this will be a new tradition. You might be surprised at the good stuff you can get with only $20.

My mom kills me with baked goods.

This is a yearly tradition, however this year I hope to take some time while I’m off to help bake.

You know, seeing as how all I usually contribute is my appetite for delicious Christmas cookies.

Layla has been my mom’s helper this week, and I can only hope to live up to her superior stirring (and testing!) skills.

Speaking of Layla, can I please just tell you how much fun she’s been, especially this time of year!?

That is all.

While Will and I are ever-mindful of advent, we’ve never really done anything on our own for it aside from church stuff.

This year I bought candles to light for each week and have been doing an advent study. I have been so very blessed by it.

It’s a story I’ve read a million times, but when I quiet myself and really think on God’s love for humanity and how I need to love others, it reminds me why I even put up my dang decorations in the first place.

To celebrate Him.

If you haven’t done an advent study, I would definitely encourage you to do so. It’s easy to get caught up in the commercialism of Christmas (because, let’s face it, it’s kind of wonderful).

However, I cannot express the value of quieting yourself amidst the hustle and bustle to really contemplate the meaning of Christmas and the beauty of its simplicity.

I don’t know about you, but that simplicity can get drowned out by the tissue paper, cookies, movies, and Pandora music.

Oh friends, it probably clear to see I truly do find Christmas to be the most wonderful time of the year!

Thanks for letting me share some of the things I’m looking forward to this year.

I would absolutely love to hear some of the things you’re excited about this year. Share away! ❤️

Aside from the fact that we all swoon with glee to see our kid/niece/grandson/etc. on stage for their portion, these things have the potential to be major snoozefests.

Admit it.

This is a safe zone.

I mean, they had teachers hold the teeny babies on stage while they played a Christmas song and gently moved their wrists around, which had little bell bracelets on them.

Adorable, but long.

Anyway, I loved getting to see Layla up there. It’s an interesting thing watching kids in front of a crowd for the first time.

Pretty entertaining.

Friday was full of work and fun. I worked out, but opted to skip my cardio session in favor of some girl time with my mom and Layla!

We made multiple stops, and got some Christmas shopping done.

I’m also afraid I ruined Layla when it comes to riding in the cart.

Let’s just say we had fun, and I got to work on my sprinting and agility.

In the safest, most responsible manner, of course.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning the house.

I didn’t even miss ditching my morning cardio session. I made up for it with four hours of cleaning!

I also managed to get some Christmas decorations down too

And even get some small candles to light one for each advent week. ❤️

Friday night was quiet and relaxing. In fact, after all my work cart sprinting (kidding… Mostly) and cleaning I didn’t even balk when Will suggested pizza for dinner.

Refeed. Haha

Saturday. Oh Saturday.

No need to address the incredibly frustrating third home loss at bedlam, or the fact that we let OSU re-punt, resulting in a touchdown.

Instead we will talk about how I killed my leg workout.

We’ll also talk about how Will’s parents came to town and we had dinner with them and watched football together.

Gotta focus on the positive, right?

Yesterday was incredibly lazy and wonderful.

Church, gym, football, food prep, and a ton of nesting.

I made a chocolate pie, my breakfast for the week, a casserole, as well as How Sweets carne asada nachos for our evening football fare ( I make Will’s according to the recipe but ditch the meat and the chips and add veggies for my version).

A relaxing and cozy day at home with my beloveds.

And now, another long week begins!

Here’s a look at what’s coming up this week:

-Tuesday Things
-WIOW
-All things Christmas
-Preparing our hearts

I hope you’ll check in this week. Until then, here’s to a good Monday!